To:V. P. NOGIN

Published:First published in 1958 in the journalVoprosy IstoriiKPSS No. 3.

      Sent from Munich to London.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1977],

      Moscow,Volume 43,

      pages51b-53a.Translated:Martin Parker and Bernard IsaacsTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Thanksfor the letter and the detailed analysis ofIskra. Thorough and
well-argumented appraisals pointing out slips (inevitable in such a difficult
job as this) are so rare that one appreciates them doubly. Your interest inIskrareinforces my hope that we shall work together for it.

Ifully agree with you that the review of home develop ments is skimpy. In the
second issue it is better, but skimpy nonetheless. It is one of the most
difficult sections, and only gradually can it be put on a satisfactory footing.

Asregards contributions from correspondents, you are not quite right, in my
opinion. The coincidence withRabochaga Mysl[3]No. 10

incidentally, I have not seen the issue; please send it to
me

does not bother me.

Itshows that we too have contacts with the St. Petersburg League,ie and that
is a very good thing.

Yourinterpretation of the advice “to be careful” con tained in the
item about the
crisis[4]is in my view erro neous and far-fetched. It
is clear from the context that the warning isonlyagainststrikes, and since next to this it is pointed out that strikes are not
the only means of strug gle, that it is necessary in these difficult times to
use other methods of struggle: propaganda (“to explain”) and agita
tion (“to prepare for more resolute—N.B.—struggle”), I
categorically protest against comparing the call “to be careful”
with theRabochaya Mysikind of thinking. The advice “to be
careful” when it comes to strikes and toprepare for more resolute struggle is the exact opposite of theRabochaya Myslposition. Your point about demonstrations is fully
justified, but, first, this enters precisely into the broader concept of
“more resolute struggle”; second, it would be out of place to make this
call more concrete and definite since there is no direct occasion for such
action and it is impossible to assess the overall situation in detail. In
issue No. 2, in a commentary on one particular strike and an item inYuzhny
Rabochy,[5]an attempt is made to be more definite on this score.

Icannot agree that the demand for state unemployment insurance could
serve to stir the workers into action. I doubt whether this is right in
principle: in a class state unemployment insurance can hardly amount to
more than a deception. From the standpoint of tactics, it is especially out
of place in Russia, since our state isfondof experiments in
“etatisation”, loves to advertise them as being for the “common good”,
and we should resolutely oppose any extension of the functions of thepresentstate and work for more freedom for public initiative. Aid
and benefits for the unemployed are all right, but “state insurance”—?

Yourpoint that the article about Zubatov is not quite rounded out is
perhaps
justified.[6]

Asfor the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Decembrists—this really
was
an omission.[7]

Ifyou wish, I can get you a Bulgarian passport.Write me if you
need it, and if so, let me have the particulars for Identification.

Thetransport situation has improved and we may be able to manage
without the help of new people.

Pleasesend me“Rabochaya Mysl”, and alsoByloye[8]andother London publications. I would also
like to have a catalogue of publications put out by the Fabian Society and
other socialist firms. Which British newspaper would you recommend? Can you
send me a couple of issues as samples? I subscribed toJustice[9]but was not satisfied with it.

Ihaven’t got four copies ofIskraat the moment. We shall get
them soon. Why, incidentally, must you havethem? Do not forget thatunder no circumstancescan it be
circulated abroad. The copy sent you isonlyfor you and your
				friend[1];

in general, for the time being, it must remain strictly a secret.

Withbest regards,Petrov

Iam sending you our pamphlet as
				well.[2]So far alsoonlyfor you,confidentially.

Pleaselet us know your opinion.

Whenare you planning to go to Russia? Before you go, we must see each
other. Couldn’t you come over for a week or
so?[10]How are you off for earnings and finances in general?

Oncemore, best regards,Yours,Petroff

[1]Thereference evidently is to S. V. Andropov.—Ed.

[2]Probablythe pamphletMay Days in Kharkov, with a preface by
Lenin (see present edition. Vol. 4, pp. 357–65).—Ed.

[3]RabochayaMysl(Workers’ Thought)—a newspaper published by
the Economists from October 1897 to December 1902. It was edited by
K. M. Takhtarev and others.

[4]Anunsigned item printed inIskraNo. 1 in the “Our Public
Life” column. It cautioned workers against unorganised strikes in the
crisis conditions then prevailing, for the employers seized upon them as a
pretext for wholesale dismissals.

[5]YuzhnyRabochy(Southern Worker)—an illegal
Social-Democratic newspaper published by a group of the same name from
January 1900 to April 1903. At the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. the
delegates from this group took a Centrist position.

TheSecond Congress dissolved theYuzhny Rabochygroup along
with all other Social-Democratic groups and organisations Which had
functioned independently.

Thereference is to reports on a strike at the Prokhorov mines (on the
Donets) carried byIskraNo. 2 (February 1901) andYuzhny
RabochyNo. 3 (November 1900).

[6]V.P.Nogin had suggested that L. Martov’s article “New Friends of the
Russian Proletariat” should end in a more pointed analogy between the
preachments of S. V. Zubatov and the treatment of economic struggle in the
programme ofRabochaya Mysl.

[7]V.P.Nogin had pointed out that althoughIskrahad chosen as
its motto words first used by the Decembrists, it made no mention of the
uprising of December 14, 1825.

[8]Byloye(The Past)—-an historical journal devoted mostly to
the history of Narodism and earlier social movements, published in 1900–04
and 1906–07, first abroad, them in St. Petersburg.

[9]Justice—a weekly published in London from January 1884 to
the beginning of 1925; organ of the Social—Democratic Federation and,
from 1911, of the British Socialist Party. From February 1925 to December
1933 it was published under the name ofSocial-Democrat.

[10]Onhis way to Russia in May 1901, V. P. Nogin spent a week in Munich
where he discussed with Lenin the work to be conducted in Russia.